North Ridgeville Police have determined that a man who claimed that he was almost hit by a vehicle last month in a racially-motivated incident had lied to investigators about it after they reviewed surveillance video showing that at the time of the alleged incident he was fighting with his brother.
The 20-year-old man told police he was walking along Cook Road around 4 p.m. when the car tried to hit him. The man told them the car attempted to hit him twice and that he thought the incident was racially motivated. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the man is Palestinian.
Because of the nature of the allegations, the case was assigned to a detective, police said in an updated news release. After viewing multiple video sources from the area and correlating them with the times of the call for service, it was found that the man had lied to investigators about being struck and about having racial slurs said to him.
Police found that the man’s injuries were caused by a violent fight with his brother, which was confirmed by area video surveillance.
The man was charged with making false alarms, falsification, obstructing official business, domestic violence and assault, police said. The man’s 19-year-old brother was charged with domestic violence and assault.
Both men were arrested on Tuesday and are currently being held at the Lorain County Jail pending a court hearing at Elyria Municipal Court.
